Other Vintages of Duckhorn Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley

Napa Valley 2010

The 2010 vintage in Napa was cool, late, and long, yielding elegant, focused, almost Bordeaux-styled wines — a definite departure from recent great vintages in which heat, drought, sun, and fruit driven power are the hallmarks. These are solid, structured wines that will need a few years to shed their youthful grip and tension. It will be interesting to watch how the 2010s age, but if you’re fond of restrained, classically-styled Napa Valley Cabernet, this is your vintage.

The season started late, with ample rainfall. After several years of very dry conditions, rain was welcome, though it pushed back the ripening cycle (bud break, flowering, and fruit set) by about two weeks. Frost was never a problem. The summer that followed was cool, and growers worked to adjust canopies and crop loads to accommodate the slow pace of ripening. Veraison occurred about two weeks late, and by the middle of August many were predicting that harvest would be almost three weeks later than average.

With vineyards pruned and canopies thinned for the cool conditions (temperatures regularly topped out around 70℉ during mid-summer), a couple of heat spikes in late August and early September (some to well over 100℉) presented challenges for growers. Many vineyards that were set up for optimal sun exposure in the cool conditions were damaged by sunburn. This required hard work to isolate and drop the damaged bunches. A reduction in yields was part of the collateral damage. After the spikes, cool temperatures returned, and September stayed cool except for a brief warm spell at month’s end.

The harvest was late but the grapes needed the extra hang time to develop. The brief warm spell at the end of September, and another in the middle of October, helped the plants eke out a little more ripeness. With rain predicted in the third week of October, it was time to pick, ready or not.

Overall, it was a tricky and challenging year. Managing the cool summer and then dealing with the heat were major obstacles. The best, but most labor intensive and painful strategy, seems to have been to thin bunches and set up for maximum ripening, meticulously select out the berries damaged by heat, and then pick as late as possible before the rain. The growers that did this ended up with a small but concentrated and classically balanced crop. It was certainly labor intensive, and costly, in terms of the reduced yields, but who said grape growing was easy?

The best wines from this vintage are solid and deeply colored, with beautiful aromatics, concentration, purity, and detail. Generally speaking, alcohols are lower than the norm, and the wines express lively, deep, dark fruit notes, elements that only come from long, cool growing seasons. They have the acidity, tannin, and structure to match the fruit, and should be long-lived, classy wines. Where growers got it wrong, you can find green notes and a weird combination of cool-climate unripe, herbal tones, oddly mixed with overripe, candied or bitter, burnt characteristics (from bunches affected by the heat that weren’t sorted out). From the weather to the wines, we’re talking about a vintage of peaks and valleys, but when winemakers and growers really got it right, quality is outstanding.

Key Dates

August

First heat spike causes sunburn and shrivels berries; Temperatures over 100℉ recorded in some spots

October

First rainfall arrives and signals the end of optimal harvest window

October

Three days of temperatures over 100℉ impact the grapes

About Duckhorn Vineyards

Producer Facts

Winery Name

Duckhorn Vineyards

Web Site

http://www.duckhorn.com/

Ownership/Management

Dan and Margaret Duckhorn

Founded by Dan and Margaret Duckhorn in 1976, Duckhorn Vineyards was established early on in the modern Napa Valley boom. The first vintage, produced in 1978, consisted of 800 cases each of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. At the time, Merlot was primarily used as a blending agent, but after falling under its spell on a trip to Saint-Émilion and Pomerol, Dan Duckhorn became one of the grape’s early proponents in Napa. Today, much of Duckhorn’s outstanding reputation comes from its Merlots, notably the Three Palms bottling. From the eponymous vineyard in Calistoga, this wine has been released every year since 1978. According to winemaker Renée Ary, the vineyard’s deconstructed rock soils, loaded with sand, cobbles, and stones from Selby Creek, create a high stress environment for the Merlot. The result is highly concentrated, flavorful wine.

A New Jersey native, Renée Ary is only the fourth winemaker in Duckhorn’s history. Her family relocated to California when she was 18 years old, and she graduated from Saint Mary’s College with degrees in chemistry and art. Like so many other winemakers, she started in the lab at Robert Mondavi, where she spent four years working with some of the tops in the trade. She also bolstered her wine knowledge by taking classes at Napa Valley College and UC Davis. Renée joined the team at Duckhorn in 2003, spending the next 11 years learning the craft under winemaker Mark Beringer. In 2014, she took the reins herself. Renée’s considerable experience with virtually every aspect of the winery has given her an excellent sense of how things work here. Although the operation is fairly large, her approach is much more akin to that of a smaller winery. Multiple small lots from their estate vineyards, along with purchased fruit, are all handled on a very individual basis.

About Cabernet Sauvignon

Cabernet Sauvignon Facts

Flavor Profile

Full, tannic wines with notes of blackcurrant and cassis

Food Pairings

Grilled red meats, stews, hard or rich cheeses

Cabernet Sauvignon has been the flagship red grape of the California wine industry for decades, and its popularity shows no sign of abating. Napa Valley is the heart of Cabernet Sauvignon production and is clearly an ideal region for creating world-class wines. If any Cabernet-based wine is capable of giving Bordeaux a run for its money, it's Napa Valley's examples. However, due to the extremely high cost of purchasing and developing vineyards in California, and the cachet of Napa Valley on the label, this has largely become a category for the well-heeled wine lover.

At their best, Napa Valley's Cabernets are characterized by fruit notes of cassis, black cherry, and licorice and sweet oak notes of chocolate, mocha, cedar, and tar. Today, most of the best wines are aged entirely or almost completely in French oak barrels, which tend to produce somewhat more refined wines than do most American barrels. (These latter barrels often introduce exotic and pungent suggestions of scotch, bourbon, tar, coconut, and dill.) But the use of expensive French oak is no guarantee of a good bottle: too many wines today, due to high crop levels or insufficiently ripe fruit, do not have the stuffing to support their oakiness and can quickly be dominated or even dried out by their wood component. The best California Cabernets mellow and soften with five to ten years of bottle aging, developing more complex and less fruit-dominated notes of tobacco, leather, and earth, with mellower wood tones. Compared to the top Bordeaux, however, many California Cabernet Sauvignons merely endure in bottle rather than truly become more interesting. There are no shortage of quality producers, even if these wines are rarely values. And it remains to be seen if today's outsized showstoppers, made from superripe grapes and undeniably impressive on release, will reward extended bottle aging or will turn out to have been best suited for drinking in their youth.

Many wines labeled Cabernet Sauvignon contain small percentages of other so-called Bordeaux varieties -- chiefly Merlot and Cabernet Franc but also Petit Verdot and even Malbec (varietally labeled wines in California must contain at least 75% of the variety named).

Cabernet Sauvignon also flourishes in Washington State, Australia and even Chile. In Washington, prices have been creeping up at the high end, with some producers aiming to compete with cult wines from the Napa Valley. Consider Chateau Ste. Michelle and Woodward Canyon. In Australia, look to the Coonawarra and Margaret River regions. Chile can reveal excellent bargains to those who know where to look: Montes makes a strong range of quality bottlings, as does Casa Lapostolle.

As Cabernet Sauvignon is bold and assertive on the palate, it pairs best with foods like grilled red meats. Taken together, the proteins and fats in the food neutralize some of the stronger tannic qualities of the wine, leading to a harmonic combination that enhances both partners.